D&D 5E What's wrong with a human-centric fantasy world?

[Li Shenron]

I have a constant desire to decrease the degree of "kitchen sink" look and feel of D&D. It seems that every published setting or homebrew I play in is based on the assumption that "more is better", and that:

- there has to be many playable races
- playable races should include traditional PHB races
- all races should more or less have similar societies and therefore opportunities

This is fine, but it's certainly not novel or original anymore. In particular, the third concept above means that every race should have access to every class, background, spell, equipment etc. with only few minor exceptions.

For me a few downsides have manifested clearly in play, among which:

- all campaigns are more similar to each other
- everybody roleplays their PC identically, whatever the chosen race (speaking like a drunkard doesn't make your Dwarf PC really different)
- there is nothing "fantastical" left about fantasy races

I almost would like to toss it all away and just have the players play human characters, and focus on the individuals in order to decide how to roleplay them, instead of looking at "race".

In the past while we were playtesting 5e, in order to simplify the game setup (almost all players had never played D&D), I didn't even mention other races, in fact we didn't use races features at all (not even the human bonuses). It was only a short campaign of but a few evenings, but nothing felt missing.

Perhaps it doesn't have to use such an extreme solution. What if the options of playing other PHB races is still there (also in combination with any class), but all non-human characters are treated are rarely seen in the world? So you can play an Elf or Dwarf (or even an Elf Barbarian or a Dwarf Monk) but you'll very unlikely ever see an Elf/Dwarf NPC?

I want to try and push these non-human races out of the common and restore a tiny little bit of wonder about them, not jeopardize a player's desires. What would be wrong with this?

 

[TrippyHippy]

Nothing at all, provided you can deal with player expectations. Personally, I think having an all Human campaign is great - especially if you allow the extra feats at level one to give then some variation. Moreover, there are plenty of good fantasy tales which are entirely human based, and by making it so you encourage more real diversity in roleplaying (as players tend to play less of a race stereotype and more as a rounded individual).

 

[Wolfskin]

I don't think there's anything wrong with a human-centric world- in fact, some of the official DnD material suggests that the "common" races are not really common at all (Dwarvish civilization in decline, Elves having mostly migrated to another world or sequestered in their primeval forests). When I run my games I tend to fall somewhere in the middle: PCs mostly campaign in human lands (or the wilderness near them), and there's not a lot of non-Human NPCs except for a few specific PCs, although the great metropolises of the world do have small communities of non-Humans around.

As no nothing fantastical left about them, I think the main issue is most people expect Middle Earth's Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits(es), but it's up the player/s and the GM's description of the race in his world.

 

[Herobizkit]

Humans Are Boring.

Mind you, in the right setting, Humans are perfectly fine. But for the most part, I play D&D to experience the fantastic over grim, gritty realism... and that usually means non-humans.

Too much can be too much, however. In the current 4e campaign in which I play, I've erred in trying to recruit "too many" non-humans into the world at large and have created a sort of "everyone's different, just like everyone else" feel. Nothing's special, or if it is, it's barely touched upon by the exposition.

 

[Midknightsun]

I agree there is absolutely nothing wrong with it and it certainly would not dissuade me from playing in such a campaign. I usually pick humans myself when I get a chance to be a player. I'd love to pull something like this off in my group, but they like their "humans in funny suits". I have enough problems keeping the group from looking like we are playing outcasts from the Wizard of Oz, let alone talking them into all being human. If you are just going to keep them rare, though, I'd suggest creating a random table for races for the PCs that is heavily slanted to human. They could roll on that or just pick a human. That is, if you can get them to buy into that idea.

 

[Ravenheart87]

Humans Are Boring.

Demihumans are just as boring.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

What I have done in the past is basically FORCE the player to role-play the characters racial tendencies. There are few things I hate more in an RPG than "human in a funny suit" style races...and, unfortunately, the last few crops of RPG players play non-human races that way. They have a dwarf happily jump into the river to swim across with all the other PC's. Their elven bard goes to the tavern, gets drunk on mead, and starts a bar fight. The list goes on and on. Drives me mad I tellz ya! It gets even worse when the really weird races start showing up....gensai, goliath, dragonborn, etc.

In one of my other fave games, Powers & Perils (always in my top three or four), the races are Human, Dwarf, Elf and Faerry (Faerries are more in size to a 'small halfling with wings' though). Dwarf, Elf and Faerry are classified as "monsters", and so they have complete write-ups in Book 3: Creatures. In those write ups, it specifically calls out things that are germane to those races. As such, a player wishing to play an Elf, for example, has to fit in his creativity with that of the racial description. In other words, you will simply NOT be able to play a psychotic, murdering elf who dresses in black with a skull and spikes motif...as those would all go against what an Elf *is*. Elves don't have "free will", nor do Dwarves or Faerries. That's a human "gift". I tend to take this "idea" to all my games.

Anyway...almost all of my fantasy campaigns/worlds I play up the fact that they are humanocentric. Humans are the most prolific and adaptable...and this makes them powerful and dominating.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I've played in various human-only campaigns. I've also played in campaigns with humans, short humans, very short humans, scaly humans and pointy-eared humans (also, the occasional horned or winged human). Honestly, I'd like to play in a campaign with fantasy races played like actual alien folks, if only for a change of pace. Human-centric seems pretty fine to me, otherwise.

 

[KarinsDad]

What I have done in the past is basically FORCE the player to role-play the characters racial tendencies.

Yeah, because we wouldn't want players to decide how their PCs behave. That would be too much BadWrongFun.

 

[Wepwawet]

Another thing is to use all the different races as subraces of human, they just have special talents, either from where they were born or from the culture they're born.

For example, there would be a city where, from a very young age, kids are in touch with magic and learn a bit of it (high elves), a human family that made a pact with demons (tiefling), rough and hardy people from the mountains (dwarves), agile forest dwellers (wood elves)... Even dragonborn could be a sort of circus performers, their breath weapon reskinned as fire breathing or spitting a cloud of poison. Of course the character must have a bottle of the liquid with him, and things like shooting electricity could be banned.

I did that once in a campaign and it worked fine, everyone human, with all the options available in the manuals.